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-
- December, 1994
-
- Intel PENTIUM flaw has computer world abuzz
- ===========================================
-
- The recent revelation, and subsequent admission by
- Intel, that the Pentium chip has a serious flaw relating to
- floating point math calculations has the statistical and
- simulation sector worried. Intel said the error occurs
- approximately once in every nine (9) billion divides.
- However, a few thousand number pairs already have shown
- to cause errors.
-
-
- THE PROBLEM: A rounding error occurs in some floating-point divide
- operations, affecting numbers in the 4th thru 19th
- positions after the decimal point.
-
- TESTING
- PROCEDURE: Perform this operation:
-
- (4,195,835/3,145,727)*3,145,727-4,195,835=
-
- The result should be zero; a flawed Pentium processor
- will return a NON-ZERO answer.
-
- APPLICABLE
- CHIPS: All Pentium chips currently on the market. Intel plans
- to ship reworked Pentium chips within the next month to
- users with "verifiable" problems.
-
- AREA OF
- CONCERN: Users heavily involved in financial applications,
- mathematically-intensive simulation or statistical
- analysis are deemed at risk. Any computer operations
- that perform millions of high-precision divide operations
- daily are the prime areas of concern.
-
- The following are NOT considered affected by this flaw:
-
- 1) Users who primarily do spreadsheets, word processing
- and conventional database applications.
-
- 2) Those users who use the Pentium for file servers.
-
- 3) Users who never use the math coprocessor.
-
- POINT OF
- CONTACT: Intel Corp. toll free number is 1-800-628-8686.
-
-
- POSSIBLE
- SOFTWARE
- BUG-FIX: Compaq Computer Corp. has proposed a stopgap software
- solution for the interim. They plan to distribute a
- software utility that will disable the floating-point
- capabilities, creating, in effect, a Pentium SX, which
- is estimated to slow floating-point operations by a
- factor of about ten.
-
- BACKGROUND: It should be noted that the first 486 chips similarly
- had floating-point errors (bugs); Intel eliminated the
- math coprocessor, resulting in the 486SX.
-
-
- //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
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- Another in a series of FREEWARE files brought to you by PUBNETIX.
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